Here's April

 Only 3 months late...

I’m sitting here melting in a puddle and trying to recall the Spring, April to be precise, and struggling.

 

I can see from my diary I met my friend Alison for lunch and a catch up on the first of the month. As usual that took place in Gails on Little Clarendon Street in Oxford, where they didn’t have any decaf tea, so I went with a rooibos (which is basically decaf.)

When I went to collect my order, the guy serving said “did you order milk with that?” and in that typical British fashion I apologised before saying yes, I had. I followed with a jokey “I bet you think that’s strange” and rather than laughing politely and moving me on, he paused and genuinely considered the question, before replying “No not really, and believe me, doing this job I have been asked for all sorts!” putting a very heavy emphasis on the ‘ALL.’

If I hadn’t have had a queue forming behind be I might of asked him for some examples!

It was lovely to catch up, and we made plans to catch up in the future which turned out to be a very exciting adventure that happened in June.

 

Looking at my pictures, I clearly took myself out for a very grey walk that weekend and I know the following weekend I had my hair done because on Thursday the 16th I was off to Germany with my Mum!

 

So, my aunt in Germany was 90 in March. My brother took my Mum out to visit as a surprise for my aunt and the cover up for this surprise was that Mum wouldn’t be able to make the birthday in March but she and I would be going in April for the wedding of one of my cousins’ daughters.

The plan was for my brother to fly out with her in March, stay the weekend then fly back leaving her there for a couple of weeks. 

One of my cousins would then fly back with her and stay a week here. In April the same thing would happen again, only this time with me flying her out.

After her first visit my Mum decided having already just been there for two weeks, she really didn’t need to stay another two weeks less than a month later. Instead she opted to come back with me after staying for a long weekend.

 

Now whilst I have seen all my cousins and their kids a fair bit over the years, it has always been when they have visited here. 

Other than various work trips, I realised I hadn’t actually visited family in Germany for well over 30 years….

I must confess I was shocked when I realised quite how long it had actually been. No real reason as to why, though I guess Himself not having a passport hasn’t helped. 

Anyway long overdue rectifying the situation. So Thursday arrived and my brother drove us to Heathrow, where we jumped on a plane. Actually almost literally as we ended up on a little shuttle bus whic took us to the end of the runway, where we got off and had to climb up a set of steps to the plane, like one of those 1950’s newsreels of a famous person, but a lot less glamourous.

 

Now I hope you are sitting down reading this next bit, because I only took hand luggage…for 4 days…and that included various gifts, plus a wedding outfit with shoes!?!

 

I’m still slightly shocked myself if I’m honest.

 

We arrived at Dusseldorf, where luckily for me the lad on immigration was far more interested in scrolling his phone than quizzing me on my intentions once I passed through into Germany.  A good job really because I had completely forgotten the address we were staying at!

My mother on the other hand it seems had a lovely chat with the girl at the desk she went through. When Mum finally emerged, it turned out the girl’s grandmother lived in the same village as my cousin, so she knew the area very well and was delighted to talk to Mum all about it. I bet the rest of the people in that queue were less than delighted to be kept waiting.

This turned out to be the theme for the weekend really; my mother was in her absolute element all weekend, talking nineteen to the dozen to everyone and anyone whilst I just went with the flow!  

For context I just don’t have an ear for languages, any languages. I was utterly hopeless at German and French at school, and apparently as a baby I would scream hysterically every time my Mum spoke German. She eventually she gave up trying to bring me up bilingual. 

So basically, whilst after a few days I can kind of pick up the gist of a conversation, my spoken German is non-existent. I do regret it, and have tried since, but I just can’t seem to grasp it. I’m incredibly lucky pretty much everyone there has extremely good spoken English.

 

My cousin Jorg and his eldest daughter Chiara were waiting for us at the airport and whisked us straight to the house of my other cousin Claus for a joint birthday party for his wife Giti and the groom Nelson.

 The whole family were there so it was pretty much full on from the first moment which was pretty much the rest of the weekend too. We ate pizza and birthday cake before heading back to Jorg’s house to unpack and sleep. 

The next morning Jorg was up early to fetch fresh bread for breakfast, a standard habit in this area where you either collect or have fresh rolls delivered each day. I kind of feel sad that we don’t do this in the UK. 

His daughters Chiara and Gina came over bringing my aunt, and we had a lovely lazy and noisy breakfast. With Mum and I handing out the gifts we had brought.

Once they left we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon running pre-wedding errands as well as going to buy wonderful fresh asparagus and strawberries at this farm witha windmill. Very Dutch you might think and it is, more of that shortly...

My family live in an area that is very rural and it was high asparagus season when we visited. They eat white asparagus (it’s actually quite hard to get the green version we eat in the UK) it looks a bit odd but is absolutely delicious.

Jorg also did a detour to the village my Mum grewe up in so I could see the old house and also just how much everything had changed. All the fields opposite are now covered in houses so I was completely confused.

In the afternoon we dropped off some tables and cutlery at Claus and Gitti’s house then parked up and went for a lovely walk in the woods close to where they live. 

As a child I knew you could easily walk to the Dutch border but I hadn’t realised just how on the border they all live. 

At one point on our walk you could step one way and be in The Netherlands, another and be in Belgium, or step back and be back in Germany!

That evening we drove deep into the woods to this lovely Italian restaurant. Chiara and Gina are both gluten intolerant, and really really struggle to eat in restaurants in Germany. They are always blown away at how many options you have here and Gina literally bought up the ‘free from’ aisle in Sainsbury’s when she and her partner drove over for a visit last year. This restaurant not only serves great food, it’s one of the few places with a gluten free option. I found it crazy to get my head around how this absolutely huge and extremely busy restaurant is just slap bang in the middle of a forest with nothing else near it for miles.

 

The next day we were up early, breakfasted on lovely fresh bread, boiled eggs and cheese before getting into our wedding finery. 

The venue was again in the middle of woodland and was all that was left of a monastery that had been destroyed by Napolean’s army apparently.

Thankfully, it was a gorgeous sunny day because the whole wedding party was left waiting outside because the ceremony before hadn’t finished yet!

It turned out there were actually seven weddings on that day, so it did feel like we were on a bit of a production line, in one door and out another. Luckily, the grounds were huge with area’s cordoned off for each party. 

Mum and I had a bit of a wander about and also thoroughly enjoyed looking at the different bridal outfits. We drank prosecco and ate these delicious traditional donut type treats that Nelson’s Mum had made whilst the pictures were taken before finally heading back to Claus and Gitti’s house for a buffet and cake. Eventually my aunt decided she had had enough so we left with Jorg to drive her back to her flat because she was insisting I see it. From there it was back to Jorg’s to change into comfortable clothes and eat some dinner. He goes to bed very early so left us enjoying a bottle of wine and watching the German equivalent of Strictly which was pretty awful sadly, the UK format is a million times better.

 

The next day started with another delightful breakfast, and this from the woman who doesn’t even like bread and actually only eats it so she can have butter, which she loves a bit too much. 

We set to work with my cousin preparing the asparagus whilst mum peeled potatoes and I hulled and chopped strawberries.

By late lunchtime Chiara and her husband Simon arrived with my aunt closely followed by Gina and Willie. Jorg had cooked for an army, but every little scrap went. It was so simple, just steamed asparagus with boiled potatoes and either melted butter or hollandaise sauce but it was utterly delicious, just so fresh and tasty. The strawberries I ate just as they were, bliss. I hate adding sugar to them and also the to me strange habit in Germany of adding sugar to cream.

My aunt arrived with an old photo album that was filled with amazing black and white pictures even my Mum can't remember having seen before. Mum had a lovely time reminiscing  andpointing out old friends and relatives, we both thought my aunt had more than a passing resemblance to Ava Gardner in many of the pictures. Unfortunately the album got whisked away before I could get my phone out and take some copies to save. I did snap this picture that hangs in my cousin's hallway, it's of my aunt and uncle shortly after they got married. It's such a lovely picture.

Once we had eaten plans were discussed for how to spend the rest of the day. 

There was a medieval fayre we had driven past the day before which we were going to go to, but my aunt decided she wanted to go and see bluebells. 

The girls and their other halves left and we all got in my cousin’s car only to drive to the next town because my aunt had now decided she wanted to walk around the small lake there and get ice cream! Thankfully the heavy rain had cleared, and whilst it was cool, it was dry and sunny.

I thought the pink blossom was so pretty. My mum and my aunt both love a tree, how alike do they look? I've never really noticed it before, I swear they have got more alike as they have got older.

I had thought the last evening would be quiet, but no, the whole family arrived! We ended up ordering take out there were so many people, but it was a fun way to finish the holiday.

Our final morning Jorg had got up super early to fetch his partner Betina who is a teacher, and had been on a school trip to Rome with about 200 11-18 year olds!?! They had driven there in a fleet of coaches and she said never, ever again!!

 It was lovely to see again her if only briefly, and to also meet one of her sons in person (he called in to collect something on his way back to university.)

Claus and Gitti arrived to take Mum and I to the airport, via my aunt’s flat because she had forgotten to give my Mum something and insisted we call in for it!

The flight home was super busy, at one point I was worried we would get bumped but thankfully we didn’t. 

Annoyingly they did make us check our bags after we had deliberately managed with small cases to avoid just that! We had to wait forever at baggage claim, I had literally just gone to file them as missing when they finally came through!

 

I was back at work 3 days before I had another day off. The plan was to go on a circular walk near Woodstock with Soo, something she has done a few times but knew I would love because there would be bluebells. 

It didn’t disappoint. There were indeed bluebells, galore as well as lambs, hares and birdlife in abundance. 

We also found a midden where I got very excited and Soo got to see a side of me she had never seen before! The one who used to go bottle digging as a teenager, I would have happily spent hours there, but she managed to persuade me away.

We ended up stopping at the museum in Woodstock for a much-needed cup of tea and slice of homemade cake, in my case a delicious courgette and sultana tea loaf.   

 

Well that was April.

 

I know for a fact there would have been craft projects, books read and unnecessary things purchased but frankly it’s too long ago for me to remember….

Of Course I'm Late For March Too

 Picking up where I left off (too many weeks ago) March started with the afternoon of the 1st at my Brother and Sister in law’s house, not only to celebrate her Dad’s birthday but to discuss all things wedding with Nephew Number One and his fiancée (plus meet her parents for the first time.)  It was a lovely somewhat chaotic time with some of my brother’s friends and my Mum there too and all of us crammed into the kitchen because the weather turned and it was freezing and pouring with rain.

 Saturday 7th we headed out to meet Soo and Gav who had invited us to join them for dinner at the delightful Talbot Inn. They had a voucher to spend there and asked us along, we were delighted to accept. 

We headed over at midday and took a long walk through Wytham Woods. The walk was lovely, but sadly the day was not and by the end of it we were all feeling the cold.

So we decamped straight to The Talbot for hot drinks, followed by beer before taking our table for our dinner booking. 

                                                   Very Uncanny-esque shelter in Wytham Woods!

Due to all the recent rain, we were quite muddy and I felt terrible for leaving a trail in my wake, but as Soo pointed out this is a pub in the countryside so they are more than used to walkers!

We all ended up eating homemade burgers, mine came with mushroom and stilton and was delicious. As was the passion fruit posset I had for pudding, I’ve never had posset before so it had to be done. Suitably replete we rolled outside, said our goodbyes and caught the bus back into Oxford, then the train home.

 

The next week was full on for work, so it was nice to have something fun to end the week with. A play at The Old Fire Station in Oxford. I was rather shocked to realise I actually hadn’t been to the venue since the 1990’s when I used to go there to see bands!

It was interesting to see what they have done with the place since as it is now a local arts venue and café. I was pointing out to Himself where the old bar and stage used to be, less nice was the fact the toilets have not really improved since I last used them all those years ago, let’s just say tired and leave it at that.

We decided to buy a drink to take in with us which was became whole drama in itself. I can only assume there had been had some sort of staffing crisis that night, and a desperate call had gone out for reinforcements, it was all slightly chaotic. Judging by his stunning make-up and jewellery, the poor guy roped into manning the bar had been halfway through getting ready for an incredible night out before being thrust behind the drinks counter. 

He gamely did his best bless him, but this was clearly his first time serving drinks to the paying public. It was all very slow with lots of rushing round trying to find things or asking for help. He didn’t seem to have a clue when it can to bottles of beer, just handing them over straight from the shelf and then looking perplexed when asked if they could please be opened first. It took a good 5 minutes to locate the bottle opener and after a very cackhanded attempt with the first bottle the people in the (now huge) queue started opening their own bottles for speed, and to make sure the full contents made it into their plastic cup! 

The plus side for the people buying wine was a huge glassful, as those were poured by eye and not by measure, though the people looking for soft drinks ended up having to nip behind the café counter and retrieve them themselves from the fridge!

I’m glad to say everyone in the queue took it in great spirit (no pun intended) and with some audience participation everyone had their drink in hand when we were called to take our seats. 

 

Having never been to a play here before, I didn’t realise there isn’t a stage as such, you literally sit right in amongst the actors. The differing heights of the seating coming from the leg length of the seats themselves. Thankfully, we didn’t end up in the front row where the very short leg length of the chairs would have proved a challenge to someone who is tall and long legged!

The play we had come to see was Black Coffee by Agatha Christie; a Poirot play that was never made into a book in her lifetime. It was performed by a local theatre group, and we both thoroughly enjoyed the production. In particular the actor playing Poirot was excellent.

It felt like a stark contrast to the disappointing show we had seen at the New Theatre the previous week.

Having said that I did have a beef, and it was a pretty big one, the costumes….

At first, I did charitably wonder if perhaps the cast had dressed themselves in that way someone who finds themselves in a period piece might take themselves to the local charity shop and think this is on the vintage rail so it must be right. But no, on leaving the venue we saw there was actually someone named on the programme as the wardrobe mistress!

There were two big issues for me, the first I will admit is niche and only bugged me because I love vintage. I knew the clothing was for the most part, from completely the wrong eras. The play was set in the early 1930’s so pre-WW2 and unfortunately you had anything but the 1930s on the stage.

Admittedly, most people probably wouldn’t have even noticed so they could have got away with it, except some of the clothing was so spectacularly wrong EVERYONE noticed. When one character walked on the whole audience actually laughed, which I really felt for him. His 1970’s suit was absolutely bloody magnificent, a real thing of glory, but with its huge lapels and insanely mahoosive flares he looked like he should have been playing a pimp in Starsky and Hutch, or some other 1970’s American cop show. I gather from friends who went on different nights his suit got the same reaction every time.

 

The glaring period error that really bothered me though, was the heroine’s handbag, and would you believe it I actually unwittingly contributed to that error!?!

Now the handbag is actually pivotal to the plot and I think the wardrobe person must have thought ok it’s a plot device so let’s make sure it’s nice big noticeable bag, but really, what young, glamourous 1930’s newly wed would take a huge cream Margaret Thatcher-esque ‘handbagger’ bag to dinner with her? I mean seriously.

Colour-wise it clashed with her outfit, it was the wrong style, the wrong era, the wrong everything. I wanted to jump out of my seat and hurl it across the stage!

And you know what made it worse? It was once my bloody bag; I recognised it immediately! It was one of the ones I had donated to Oxfam’s vintage shop when we moved house and I was in the throes of panicky packing and decluttering.

 

The second big wardrobe issue Himself commented on immediately as we left, as did my friends who went on other nights. This was the actual state the clothes the actors were wearing. All the men’s suits had been altered by letting the trouser hems down, and in the case of Poirot the cuffs of his suit jacket as well, but none of them had been pressed or steamed. Such a simple thing to do and it would have made such an incredible difference, the creases were so noticeable, and to have Poirot who is famous for his fastidious dressing, with old hem creases and even a cuff hanging out on one side but not the other, well it really jarred. Another character was trailing threads as he walked, the work of a moment to snip them off, it was all the more noticeable because we were right there up close and personal with the cast.

Anyway, rant over and other than that it was a lovely night out.

 

I finished off the month with a day out with Soo. I took a Friday off work and headed over to her house for a visit to a lovely garden centre near Charlbury as Soo has a voucher to spend. It was a real test of strength for me because I am banned from buying any more plants by Soo and god, I could have bought many, so so many. The prices were good and so was the range, in the end I was given permission to buy one lovely pale blue primula because it was reduced to 50p. Weeps.

Soo thought it was going to be a challenge to spend her voucher as she doesn’t garden but she found a lovely wall plaque and even bought some reduced cut and come again herbs which she has since planted in a trough just outside her back door. 

There was also a mad moment where we coincided in a doorway with an elderly lady, she coming from the right and we from the left, it was big enough for us to walk through side by side so I smiled politely at her and we all moved forward. This was just as a member of staff walked towards us to go out through the said doorway. She and the elderly lady clearly knew each other, so she said a cheery hello and asked ‘How’s George’ ‘He died last week’ was the reply from the elderly lady and just like that we were suddenly both trapped in this very awkward conversation! We put on suitably I’m so sorry to hear that faces and sort of slowly edged away…   

We decided to eat lunch at the garden centre in their little restaurant, and the food was so delicious. I had a cauliflower and broccoli cheese bake thing that literally gave me the cheese sweats there was so much on there! It was bliss.     

From there we drove into Charlbury itself. Soo calls it her nemesis because she always gets lost when she walks round the village. She says it’s roughly based on a star shape and she finds it confusing. Anyway other than visiting the annual beer festival I have never looked round and it was stunning; no wonder it has become THE Cotswold holiday spot for the rich and famous. Of course I had forgotten my camera! and was cursing myself because I could have taken so many gorgeous pictures. 

I did take one picture with my phone (which has a rubbish camera) of the two goats who tried to eat my bag!

Luckily, I have a pretty good sense of direction, and even though we just wondered all over following random footpaths, I managed to get us back to the car. We did dive into the Co-op for a cold drink which we sat and drank on a bench on the village green. 

Soo got the best look ever off two ladies who walked past just as she said “ and that taught me to never, ever, put a dead body in a wheelie bin again” I about died laughing at their horrified faces (for the record she was talking about a pigeon that sadly flown into her patio window and broken it’s neck.)

We also bought pizza for tea as I was staying the night, and we had a fab evening drinking wine and watching TOTP2 and Gogglebox before falling down the rabbit hole of videos on YouTube. I had been suffering from insomnia at the time so felt a bit bad that So ended up sitting up with me until 3.30am before we finally called it a night.

 

The next day was another gorgeous sunny day so we caught the bus into Oxford, getting off at Osney and taking a lovely walk down the tow path into the city centre. We mooched the shops before buying a sandwich for lunch and meeting Soo’s other half Gav for his lunch break. Soo was meeting her friend Chris and Himself was at a leaving drinks for a work colleague, so we decamped to The Grapes and they both met us there. It got silly busy with the football on, so we headed over to White Rabbit for another drink before Soo and Chris headed off to their comedy show and Himself and I caught the train home.  

And that was March. 

 

I know I definitely bought some things in March, if nothing else my Erstwilder collecting goes on expanding with their monthly releases. 

I finally got round to labelling the draws I store them in, as you can see I am rapidly running out of space…

I’m going through a bit of a green phase at the moment and bought these two dresses from Finery 

and this lovely blouse from Sugarhill.  

I have also carried on with the cross stitching and fell in love with the crow on this cushion kit I found in T K Maxx, I didn't like the whole of the design so I adapted the background.

I ’m going to try and get April and May typed up and out before too much longer, but given the way I’ve been going so far this year, don’t hold your breath.  

I'm also late for February.

 And so to February as I try to catch up on my year and my blog posts.

 

We finally had a couple of sunny days, so I took advantage of working from home and headed out for a lunchtime walk. It really does do the soul good, well it does mine anyway, to get out into nature.

I was walking along the old disused railway line near our town when suddenly a load of birds shot out of the hedges just ahead of me.

I did have my purple waterproof on which is quite rustley, and my old brogue boots which for some reason clomp loudly when you walk (Himself calls them my Mr Noisy shoes!) 

so I did wonder if they had been startled by my approach, but the next minute a blackbird zoomed along the hedge line with a sparrowhawk in hot pursuit! 

That blackbird dipped and wove like the finest Spitfire pilot with a Messerschmitt on his tail and did escape to fly another day. It was over in seconds but breathtaking to watch.

 

On Saturday the 7th Soo came over and we decided to have a bus adventure. We caught one over to the nearby town of Wantage, which other than visiting the hospital for physio when I broke my shoulder 5 years ago, I haven’t been to in probably a decade. 

I have no idea why and it turned out to be not only bigger than I remembered, but really rather lovely. It was meant to poor with rain but instead the day was sunny and we had a lovely time. 

As seems to have been the theme for this year I forgot my camera so I don’t have any pictures to share, I really must go back and rectify that.  

We mooched the streets looking at all the lovely old buildings and looked round all the shops. I must say it was lovely to see many independent stores and hardly any chains. 

It was also the first time I had stepped into a charity shop, other than to drop of donations, since we moved house. I bought a mug, a plant pot with a crab on it and a cook book, pretty restrained even if I do say so myself! 

By now we were hungry and after looking at the menus outside various places settled on Marmalade a lovely café in the market square. 

It was packed but we managed to snag a table and had a delicious lunch. 

After we had eaten we had a mooch past the church and a bit of a walk by the stream that runs nearby, it was beautiful but very muddy so we decided that is somewhere to visit on another day. I need to look out our OS map and see what walks there are around and about the town centre.

 

The middle of February was super busy workwise. 

Himself and I went out for a walk on Valentine’s Day. I chose the route which got very muddy at one point, but we did see a beautiful deer, so I felt it was well worth it even if Himself was not so happy with the mud.

We also managed to get out for some fresh air the following Sunday too. It had been so wet we had been pretty much sticking to the old railway line as it is tarmacked, it’s a good 2.5 miles from end to end so you do get to feel like you have had a decent walk. At one point I was taking a picture of some early blossom in a hedgerow when I had this overwhelming feeling I was being watched. I stepped back and looking between the trees met the eyes of my observer. 

I cannot lie it was a tad unnerving!

 

On Wednesday the 25th we attended a Seed Talk. I had seen various adverts coming up on my time line for a while now, when I spotted one called ‘Folklore and Women’ by Dr Joan Passey that was actually taking place in the main lecture theatre at my place of work!

 I messaged Charlotte to see if she fancied going and she relied almost immediately to say yes. I mentioned in passing to Himself that I was going, and he surprisingly announced he would also like to go so I ended up buying three tickets. 

Charlotte and I met in Oxford for a drink at The Grapes and then pizza at Franca Manca before heading to meet Himself outside my work. 

The talk was pleasingly busy, and I even saw a couple of our students there. Overall, I did very much enjoy it, but I feel it might have benefitted from focusing on a specific genre, or era of folklore and or storytelling. It was a huge subject to cover in a couple of hours, so it felt like a somewhat frustrating skim over the surface rather than a deep dive. I am keeping an eye on their future offerings and will definitely go to another. Himself was pondering why the name sounded familiar and on getting home realised he has a couple of Dr Passey’s books!

 

On Friday 27th I met my friend’s Simon, Carole and Liz for lunch and to celebrate Carole’s 80th birthday. We had arranged to have a couple of roses for her garden delivered the day before which she was delighted with.

It was fairly quiet in the pub, but we clearly made up for that I think because the landlady came over with our bill at the end and said it had been lovely to hear all the laughter from our table!

That evening Himself and I were off into Oxford again to see ‘2:22 - A Ghost Story’ at the New Theatre. As mentioned here before I am a fan of the Uncanny podcast and Danny Robins the presenter wrote the play which was partly why I wanted to go, it had also had rave reviews when it was on in the Werst End. Indeed, we had had the tickets for 18 months.

We had a drink in The Grapes before going in, a good job really because my small glass of wine in the theatre was an eyewatering £10 and tasted like paint stripper!  

 

Sadly, the play did not live up to expectations, and we ended up going back to The Grapes for a post theatre drink and to dissect it in detail. 

The main issue was the actors were not wearing mics, so they were literally bellowing at each other to make sure they were heard by the whole audience. We both found this incredibly distracting, and it really, really detracted from the atmosphere. It’s almost impossible to have nuance and emotion when you are roaring across a stage at one another. 

I spoke to a couple of friends afterwards who also saw the play, and when I mentioned the shouting they both said it was a problem for them too, and that they couldn’t always understand what the actors were saying. Having said that in both their cases though they enjoyed the play and didn’t guess the ending.

As a lifelong fan of ghost stories, I guess for me the other thing that bugged me was literally every classic ghost story trope had been shoehorned into the script somehow, which made it feel a bit cliched. I had also figured out the plot twist well before the end. Funnily enough so had Himself, but for a completely different reason to me!

 

I may have done a tiny bit of sale shopping. I bought a dress from Kharibu which is lovely but a much lighter weight that I was anticipating for the cost. 

I also did a bit of brooch buying. 

Erstwilder did a Hanna Barbara release and when I saw the Scooby Doo ones, well it had to be done!

 

So that was February. 

I’ll try and do March before the end of April so I am just about caught up. I can’t promise anything though as I am off to Germany on Thursday for a family wedding among other things...